NYC: Tests indicate no swine flu in dead toddler

NEW YORK (AP) -- City health officials said Tuesday tests conducted on a toddler who died after being hospitalized with respiratory symptoms indicate he wasn't infected with swine flu.

A Department of Health statement released Tuesday night said the tests were performed on nasal swabs taken from 16-month-old Jonathan Zamora Castillo, who died Monday night. It said tissue samples were sent to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta for further analysis and results are expected this week.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg said doctors don't know what killed the toddler, who was born in the United States to Mexican parents, but he noted the boy's 3-year-old sister had been sick with flu-like symptoms.

"What we do know is that a child is dead, and it is very tragic, regardless of what caused it," Bloomberg said while briefing reporters earlier Tuesday.

It was unclear if the boy or anyone in his family had recently visited Mexico, where thousands of people have been sickened by the virus and 74 have died.

A spokesman for the Mexican Consulate said it was in contact with the family and likely would help to fly the boy's body back to his parents' homeland for burial.Health Commissioner Thomas Frieden recommended closing three public schools starting Wednesday after reports of high rates of influenza-like illness among students.

That will bring the total to at least 21 city schools closed by flu fears, including 18 public schools and three private or parochial schools.Officials at the private Horace Mann School in the Bronx sent an e-mail to parents saying it had no known cases of swine flu but would close after school Tuesday because of high absenteeism due to illness.

A funeral is scheduled Wednesday for the city's first confirmed swine flu death. Services for Mitchell Wiener, an assistant principal at a Queens public middle school, will be held at the Sinai Chapels funeral home in Queens.Meanwhile, swine flu has appeared to solidify its foothold in the city's huge jail complex on Rikers Island. Four inmates had confirmed cases, and at least four more had probable cases, Bloomberg said.

The mayor said authorities won't evacuate the complex, which houses about 13,400 prisoners, but steps are being taken to try to prevent the illness from spreading, including isolating the sick, questioning new inmates about their health and making hand sanitizer widely available.